PC sales crashed 8.1 percent in Q1 2009

Posted on Tuesday, June 23 2009 @ 17:45 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Research firm iSuppli announced PC shipments in the first quarter of this year totaled 66.5 million units, a 8.1 percent drop from 72.3 million during Q1 2008, and a 14.4 percent drop from 77.6 million units in Q4 2008.

Not all segments performed bad though, while desktop computer sales crashed 23 percent sales of notebooks grew by 10 percent compared to Q1 2008 due to strong netbook sales.
“The worldwide recession sparked by the credit crisis slammed PC shipments for the second quarter in succession during the first three months of 2009,” said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst for compute platforms research at iSuppli. “The first-quarter performance of the worldwide PC market was worse than iSuppli had expected in its prior forecast, which called for a 4 percent decline in shipments compared to the same period in 2008. After a long period of immunity to the global downturn, the economic crisis finally has begun to impact the PC market.”

Top-5 PC Makers Retain Ranks
There were no changes in the rankings of the world’s Top-5 PC OEMs in the first quarter compared to the same period a year earlier.

Hewlett-Packard remained the No.-1 PC OEM for the 11th successive quarter, with its shipments remaining flat from a year earlier at 13 million units. The company held a market share of 19.7 percent.

Dell experienced an 18.7 percent drop in PC unit shipments, declining to 8.8 million in the first quarter, compared to 10.8 million during the same period in the 2008. The company’s market share declined to 13.2 percent, down from 14.9 percent in the first quarter of 2008.

“Dell’s performance in the first quarter was heavily influenced by its weak desktop shipments, which dragged down its overall market share,” Wilkins said.

The remainder of the Top-5 was rounded out by the Asian PC OEMs, Acer, Lenovo and Toshiba, which had market shares of 11.1, 6.7, and 5.2 percent, respectively.

Toshiba posted the strongest growth among the Top-5 on a percentage basis, with its shipments rising by 13.5 percent from a year earlier.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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